Collaboration and Feminism: A Twenty-First Century Renascence

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Notes

1. This observation is drawn from an extensive timeline compiled by the author for her doctoral thesis, ‘A History of Women-only Art Collectives and Collaboration in Australia 1970–2010’ (PhD thesis, University of New South Wales, 2014).

2. Ongoing research observes more recently formed groups.

3. Técha Noble in Bim Ricketson, ‘The Kingpin and I’, Cyclic Defrost 6 (2003): 7.

4. Noble in ‘The Kingpin and I’, 7.

5. Ibid.

6. The works became Pussy Whipped, 2000, and Evil Dick, 2001. Emma Price in Regina Botros, ‘Creative Partnerships’, April 2013, Radio National, http://www.abc.net.au (accessed April 22, 2013).

7. Mesiti studied time-based art, Noble studied painting and drawing and Emma studied sculpture, performance and installation at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW. Katie studied arts at Sydney University.

8. The caveat ‘seemingly’ here refers to the fact that even individual roles, in the form of four distinct costumes, are often a combination and pastiche of distinct referents in order to create an archetype.

9. The artists do not actually feature in Spider Nanny.

10. The Kingpins, ‘Interview with Philip Brophy’, Photofile 227, (Autumn 2006): 23.

11. This line of thought on the parallels between The Kingpins’ performing bodies and their collective process was prompted by Francis E. Parker's article and his repeated use of the phrase ‘collective bodies’. Francis E. Parker, ‘The Kingpins: Collective Bodies’, Das Superpaper 27 (June 2013): 54.

12. Price in Botros, ‘Creative Partnerships’.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid.

16. Silvana Mangano in Andrew Stephens, ‘Drawing on Togetherness’, The Age, May 27, 2009, 14.

17. Stephens, ‘Drawing on Togetherness’, 14.

18. Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano in Paul Andrew, ‘Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano—18^th Biennale of Sydney—interviews’, http://paulandrew-interviews.blogspot.com.au/ (accessed June 27, 2013); and Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano in ‘Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano’, artist profile, Scanlines, http://scanlines.net (accessed June 27, 2013).

19. Mangano and Mangano in ‘Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano’, Scanlines.

20. Other Australian collaborating sisters have opted for aliases—such as Matchbox Projects and Soda_Jerk—or names that highlight their familial relationship—e.g. The Sisters Hayes and The Strutt Sisters.

21. Stephens, ‘Drawing on Togetherness’, 14.

22. This observation is made by a number of writers, including: Geraldine Barlow, ‘Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano’, Double Take: Anne Landa Award for Video and New Media Arts 2009 (Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2009), 27; Charles Green, ‘Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano, Anna Schwartz Gallery’, review, ArtForum International 50, no. 6 (2012): 248; Vicki McInnes and Simon Maidment, ‘Silvana and Gabriella Mangano—If… So… Then…, 2006’, Move on Asia 2007, http://www.simon-maidment.com (accessed February 21, 2011); and Penny Webb, ‘Gabriella and Silvana Mangano, If… So… Then…, Centre for Contemporary Photography’, review, The Age, February 4, 2007, 35. The artists themselves have described If… So… Then…, as emulating a language the pair invented when they were young. Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano in ‘Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano’, QAG|GOMA, http://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au (accessed June 27, 2013).

23. Tania Doropoulos, ‘In the Stillness of Shadows’, Anna Schwartz Gallery, http://www.annaschwartzgallery.com (accessed February 27, 2011).

24. An allusion to kaleidoscopes in this work is made by Elizabeth Fortescue, ‘Double Dose of Cinema Art for Mangano Twins at Biennale of Sydney Exhibition’, The Daily Telegraph, June 27, 2012, http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au (accessed June 27, 2012). The phrase ‘single artist doubled’ is used by Charles Green, ‘Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano, Anna Schwartz Gallery’, 248.

25. G. Mangano or S. Mangano in Andrew, ‘18^th Biennale of Sydney’.

26. Barlow, ‘Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano’, 27.

27. Victoria Lynn, ‘Double Take’, Double Take: Anne Landa Award for Video and New Media Arts 2009 (Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2009), 11.

28. Two exceptions are their inclusion in the exhibition Contemporary Australia: Women (2012) at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) and Alexie Glass's article ‘Extimacy: A New Generation of Feminism’, wherein she locates the Manganos within a generation of artists making ‘lo-fi artist-action videos’ that, Glass argues, refer directly to those made by feminist precursors. Art and Australia 47, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 136. The sisters declined, via their gallery, to be interviewed for this research, contributing to this sense of secrecy.

29. Clark and Beaumont, in particular, have noted Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano as influences on their practice. Sarah Clark and Nicole Beaumont, interview with the author, December 1, 2014.

30. Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont, correspondence with the author, June 4, 2013.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid.

33. The artists’ note that they have also applied this naming practice to other projects, such as their work with Thea Costantino, which they credit to Thea Costantino, Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont for Hold Your Horses. Ibid.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid.

38. There is also a lack of non-white and non-able-bodied figures in the visual languages they mimic.

39. Hannah Mathews, ‘Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont’, Primavera 08: Exhibition by Young Australian Artists (Sydney: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2008), 23.

40. Gill and Mata Dupont, correspondence.

41. Ibid.

42. Dan Angeloro and Dominique Angeloro, correspondence with the author, March 2, 2011.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid. This avoidance of portraiture and press photography was more deliberate in their earlier years.

46. It is curious to note that both Soda_Jerk and the Mangano sisters respond to mistaken identity via further masking and obscuring their faces, the Manganos in their work Drawing 2, 2001.

47. Angeloro and Angeloro, correspondence.

48. Ibid.; and Soda_Jerk quoted in Stephanie Van Schilt, ‘After the Rainbow’, review, Next Wave Text Camp Reader, http://textcamp.nextwave.org.au (accessed June 1, 2010).

49. Soda_Jerk, Hollywood Burn, video, 2011, Vimeo, http://vimeo.com45360616 (accessed August 8, 2013).

50. Soda_Jerk, ‘Hollywood Burn’, artwork description, Soda_Jerk, http://www.sodajerk.com.au (accessed August 8, 2013).

51. This point is also made by Amanda Trevisanut; see ‘A Digital Intervention: Remixes, Mash ups and Pixel Pirates’, Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media, (June 2009), http://blogs.arts.unimelb.edu.au.

52. Kelly Doley, interview with the author, June 6, 2013.

53. Ibid.

54. Kelly Doley and Diana Smith, interview with the author, June 6, 2013.

55. Doley, interview.

56. Smith, interview.

57. Ibid.

58. Doley, interview.

59. Doley and Smith, interview.

60. Smith, interview.

61. Doley and Smith, interview.

62. Doley, interview.

63. Maria Lind, ‘The Collaborative Turn’, Taking the Matter Into Common Hands: On Contemporary Art and Collaborative Practices, ed. Johanna Billing, Maria Lind and Lars Nilsson (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2007), 27.

64. Doley, interview.

65. Ibid.

66. Anne Marsh, ‘Thinking Performance Art’, exhibition catalogue, Once More with Feeling, (Southbank: VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery, 2009), 10.

67. ‘Network’ is used here in the simple sense of ‘groups of interconnected people’ and refers to the supportive relationship of peers, colleagues and audiences in hosting, performing at and attending artist-run performance nights, festivals and events. Martin del Amo, ‘New waving’, Realtime 85 (June–July 2008), http://www.realtimearts.net/article/85/9019 (accessed August 10, 2012); Sebastian Goldspink, ‘(un)becomings’, a conversation with Brian Fuata, Sarah Rodigari and Jess Olivieri, Das Superpaper 26 (2013), http://www.dasplatforms.com/ (accessed June 18, 2013); Jess Olivieri, interview with the author, June 17, 2013; Bree Richards, ‘Embodied Acts, Live and Alive—An Email Roundtable’, Contemporary Australia: Women (South Brisbane: Queensland Art Gallery, 2012), 173; Nick Waterlow, ‘The Creation of Contemporary Australian Art’, Current: Contemporary Art from Australia and New Zealand (Paddington: Dott publishing, 2008), 6.

68. Glass, ‘Extimacy’, 135; Catriona Moore, ‘The More Things Change … Feminist Aesthetics, Then and Now’, Artlink 33, no. 3 (2013): 24; Richards, ‘Embodied Acts’, 173.

69. G. Mangano in Stephens, ‘Drawing on Togetherness’, 14.

70. Hosted at the Victorian College of the Arts Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Southbank; Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney; and Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne.

71. Hosted at the Carlton Hotel, Melbourne and the VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery.

72. Vickie McInnes, ‘Introduction: A Time Like This’, A Time Like This (Southbank: VCA Margaret Lawrence Galleries, 2008), 13.

73. Brophy in The Kingpins, ‘Interview with Philip Brophy’, 23.

74. Mark Holdsworth, ‘And the Winner Is…’, Black Mark: Melbourne Art and Culture Critic, http://melbourneartcritic.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/and-the-winner-is%E2%80%A6/ (accessed May 12, 2013).

75. Other Australian artists who have engaged with the strategy include Pam Debenham, Julie Rrap, Anne Zahalka and Lodwick©ampbell.

76. Groups formed in the 1990s include: 1991: VNS Matrix; 1994: Turpin + Crawford, The Strutt Sisters; 1997: Out-of-Sync; 1999: Nat & Ali; while equivalent collectives formed in the 1980s were 1982: 99 Designs; 1984: Young Women's Photographic Collective; 1988: 2 + 2 = 5. These figures do not include one-off, short-term, community or open collective activities.

77. Geert Lovink and Trebor Scholz, ‘Introduction: Collaboration on the Fence’, The Art of Free Cooperation (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 2007), 21.

78. Courtney Pedersen, Anita Holtsclaw and Courtney Coombs, ‘She's Done Alright for a Girl: Strategies for Teaching Women Artists’ (paper presented at The Future of the Discipline: ACUADS Conference 2014, Melbourne, Australia, October 2–3, 2014).

79. Pederson, Holtsclaw and Coombs, ‘She's Done Alright’.

80. Smith, interview.